Departmental Staff Sick Leave

Thursday, 3 July 2014

Questions (73)

Barry Cowen

Question:

73. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will outline in tabular form the total number of sick days taken by staff in his Department in 2011, 2012, 2013 and to date in 2014 further broken down by uncertified, certified and long-term absence leave. [28827/14]

View answer

Written answers

Minister for Education and Skills

The information requested by the Deputy for the period in question is provided in the attached tabular statement.

Detail	2011	2012	2013	2014
Total Sick Leave	14633.22	13998.65	12673.37	5084.14
Total Certified Sick Leave	13375.73	12837.97	11805.3	4629.51
Days lost => 28 Days	7480.58	7322.43	6397.3	2064.44
Days lost < 28 days	5895.15	5515.54	5408	2565.07
Self- certified Sick Leave	1257.49	1160.68	868.07	454.63

Note:

Under the Government Shared Services Programme People Point now have responsibility for the administration of all absences including sick leave and the above statistical information has been prepared by them.

Due to the different methodologies used in compiling the information figures differ within the particular years from those provided to the Deputy in the reply to his PQ on 18 June 2013.

Examples below show how absence totals were calculated differently in both reports:

(1) An 80% work sharer absent from 14/11/2013-05/02/2014 inc. PeoplePoint calculate this as 47 days – all the actual work days lost up to 05/02/2014. PeoplePoint have calculated on the basis of the entire absence including the 2014 days which are not proper to 2013 figures. However, DES calculated this as 25.6 i.e. actual work days lost to 31/12/2013.

(2) A 50% work sharer absent from 27/01/2009 – 10/04/2014 Inc. PeoplePoint calculated as 251.6 days the total days available to work in 2013. DES takes into account the work pattern of 50% and shows it as 125.5 days lost.